Current attempts by criminologists to understand, and thereby to prevent or control, violent and antisocial behavior in the U.S. call for a more comparative, contextual and theoretical examination of violence than has so far been attempted. To contribute to this new effort, by comparative data and an oblique perspective, this project would examine the causes, kinds, incidence and low-cost control of violence in a population which shares several U.S. problems (a violence which it cannot eliminate and cannot easily control) but few social characteristics (being rural, non-literate, small-scale, simple in technology, subsistence-oriented in economy, homogeneous in population, and lacking specialized agencies of social control). Specific aims of the research are to understand a mirror image of the U.S. violence problem, viz: how an external policy of violent interdiction, leading to a high external homicide rate, co-exists with a low rate of internal homicide within the same population. How is violence deflected externally and controlled internally by simple institutional arrangements, and at low social cost (mainly citizen involvement)? What mental and physical health hazards are involved in such responses? The method chosen (because the population is not literate and lacks reliable records) is to record by means of participant observation during a five-month field study, the personally experienced violent encounters of some 250 adults drawn from 84 families totalling about 1,500 people. The violent encounters (anticipated at about 1,000 or more) should be representative of the life experience of the social group of 20,000 to which they belong, and of the 250,000 people of their parent population. With the aid of computer analysis, and supplemented by general statements from interviews and directly observed violent encounters, these data will be used to establish general causes, patterns, and consequences of violence; to test over 20 hypotheses; and to re-examine various explanations of homicide and violent behavior current in criminology and social sciences.